When I was younger I wanted to be in the secret service because I wanted to know all the “secrets” and have a high-security clearance. I wanted access to data and information. I guess not much has changed. I still want to know things that have happened and all the details but my interest is less in the present and more in the past.
My ears perked up with a simple question asked over lunch one lazy Sunday…”did you know that?” Has that ever happened to you? You hear a fact that you didn’t know and suddenly you are hooked? You want to read and research all about it. Anyone? Well, it happened to me in just that way, “did you know that Bonnie and Clyde had a shoot out in a nearby small town?”
Bonnie and Clyde? THE Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow?? The outlaws who were as well-known for their love affair as they were their robberies. They had a shoot-out near where I lived and I had to find out more. And I did. In fact, I found out so much that it turned into a three-part post.
If you are unfamiliar with Bonnie and Clyde here is the short version, the really short version. Clyde Chestnut Barrow and Bonnie Elizabeth Parker both came of age during the Great Depression. Money and jobs were scarce. Both the Barrow family and the Parker family moved to an area of West Dallas known as Cement City or the Great Divide. They met and lived as outlaws until their deaths in May of 1934. Bonnie puts their story best in her own words.
At the height of their popularity, they found themselves in Southwest Missouri several times, twice in 1933 and again in 1934. This post covers their January 1933 time in Springfield, the time they kidnapped a local police officer and took him on a joyride.
I will be citing two sources in this post. The first is Officer Persell’s own account as given to a press staff after the incident with the Barrow gang and the second from a memoir written by the third man in the car, W.D. Jones.
Part 1: January 1933- Springfield Missouri
It was the evening of January 26th when motorcycle police officer Tom Persell pulled over a Ford V-8 coach after noticing suspicious behavior. It was just north of the Benton Avenue viaduct. The photos below show the area where Persell pulled the car over. The photo on the right shows the Benton Avenue viaduct at an angle looking south. Clyde did not like stopping on bridges as it limited his escape route.
Clyde had good manners, just naturally. It fooled a lot of folks, like that policeman in Missouri. We was driving over a bridge and the motor law rolled up beside us and told us to pull over. Clyde smiled and told him, “Just a minute, sir.” It was night and Clyde want to get off that bridge before he stopped.
W.D. Jones Memoir November 1968
Officer Persell walked up to the car and found himself staring into the faces of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Rather then the citation Persell was expecting to write, he found himself at gunpoint and in the backseat of Barrow’s car, without his service revolver. In Persell’s words, the car contained an arsenal of weapons and he sat on what he thought was stacks of money. Barrow needed directions out of town and Persell directed him through Springfield and surrounding roads.
According to Persell’s account on January 27, 1933, he even helped them change the battery in their stolen car.
The men seemed to have a mania for V-8 Fords and I believe they were trying to steal the other cars just to get batteries for their machine… When he returned, he had an old battery, which was a sorry looking thing. He set it on the running board and started off. It fell off once and we went back after it. After driving several miles, we stopped and I held the light while the driver took the floorboards out of the car and prepared to put in the stolen battery. The other fellow stood behind me and the girl stayed in the car. I helped with the pilers after we got the battery placed.
Tom Persell’s account as told to press staff Perry Smith in Springfield MO 1933
The third man in the car that night was W.D. Jones, a known accomplice of the Barrow gang. In 1968 he wrote a memoir about his times with Bonnie and Clyde and mentioned Officer Persell.
We drove about 150 miles before the car’s battery run down and the car quit. The generator wasn’t working right. We was just outside a little town so Clyde told me, “Boy, you’re gonna have to go get a battery. Take him with you.” And that’s what we done. Me and that policeman went into town and took a battery out of a car and took turns carrying it back to where Clyde and Bonnie was waiting. You’d have thought we was working buddies. We had a pair of pliers and a wrench and that policeman worked right hard to get the battery in the car like Clyde wanted.
W.D. Jones Memoir November 1968
Clyde let Persell go without harm but did drop him off about 8 miles from the nearest telephone. Persell returned home, much to the relief of his family, with an amazing story. He served the Springfield Police Department and later worked with the US Postal Service. He died in 1989, a lifelong resident of Springfield.
An Interesting Note about Officer Persell’s Service Weapon.
When Persell asked for his revolver back, Clyde’s answer was simply, “we can use it.” This gun was special to Persell since he paid for it himself, a Smith & Wesson .44 Special with jigged bone grips. It was one of the pistols that Bonnie & Clyde used in their photos they took of themselves found in Joplin. Persell inquired about the gun, years later, but because he could not supply the serial number, despite a thorough description, he was unable to get it back from its current owner.
Want to know more about Bonnie & Clyde in Southwest Missouri? Stay tuned for parts 2 & 3 coming soon.
Till next time,
Kimberly
What do you think of Bonnie & Clyde? Are they two kids who got stuck in bad circumstances or are they heartless killers? Or are they somewhere in the middle? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I can’t wait to hear from you!
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to buy Kimberly a cup of coffee.